Your pessimism is well founded. It's FAR to late to reinvent the domestic landscape now. Labor cannot stop what is already here. As of right now, RJ's comprise 50% of the domestic market. All that will happen is that those aircraft will become slightly larger and perhaps swallow another 10-15% at most. BUT, comprised with a reduction of overall capacity in the domestic system, that will mean the mainline portion will have to contract noticably. Anger alone will not change this.

They're are plenty of tired and rickety old 737's, DC-9's and MD-80's out there to be parked and sent to 2nd tier freight companies or acquired by Budwiser and Miller beer, so unfortunately the current capacity at the domestic mainline level is ripe for trimming.